SXSW 2020
NASA's First Planetary Defense Mission: DART
Description:
Asteroids have been hitting the Earth for billions of years. Now, Earth hits back with the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART. NASA’s first space mission to demonstrate a potential method of planetary defense will target a small moonlet in the binary asteroid system Didymos (which poses no threat to Earth). DART scientists and engineers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and NASA will discuss how to autonomously direct a spacecraft at an asteroid and smash into it, measuring the orbit change from the ground. The first mission to come out of NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, DART will launch in 2021 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Related Media
Other Resources / Information
Takeaways
- Are asteroids a real threat to Earth? Why the need for DART and why the planet needs protection from Near Earth Objects in our solar system.
- How DART will deflect an asteroid via kinetic impactor and the key technologies enabling this mission, including an autonomous navigation system.
- The international effort involved in planetary defense and the global teams performing ground-based observations before and after impact.
Speakers
- Nancy Chabot, DART Coordination Lead , The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
- Andy Rivkin, DART Investigation Co-Lead, The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
- Elena Adams, DART Mission Systems Engineer, The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
- Thomas Statler, DART Program Scientist, NASA
Organizer
Justyna Surowiec, Public Affairs Officer, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
SXSW reserves the right to restrict access to or availability of comments related to PanelPicker proposals that it considers objectionable.
Add Comments